OCR Text |
Show 174 IT'S OK TO BE MAD, EVEN WHEN YOU'RE WRONG": MOTHER'S EXPLANATIONS FOR THEIR CHILDREN'S HARMFUL AND HELPFUL BEHAVIOR Jessica Robinson Human Development and Family Studies Holly Recchia, Assistant Professor, Department of Education Concordia University Cecilia Wainryb, Professor, Department of Psychology University of Utah research posters on the hill spring 2012 "It's ok to be mad, even if you're wrong": Mother's Explanations for Their Child's Harmful and Helpful Behavior Jessica Robinson (Holly Recchia*, Cecilia Wainryb) Department of Psychology *Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada Results Results (cont.) Discussion Coding Method Introduction Jessica Robinson Dr. Holly Recchia Dr. Cecilia Wainryb • Parents, in general, want their children to be good people. Indeed, there is a large body of research examining how parents promote positive moral values (Coplan, Hastings, Legace-Seguin,& Moulton, 2002; Grolnick, Deci, & Ryan, 1999; Grusec, Rudy, & Martini 1999; Grusec, Goodnow, & Kuczynski 2000; Smetana 1999). • However parents have other goals as well: • They also wish to see their child in a positive light • And promote a positive self-view in the child (Baumrind, 1966; Coplan et al 2002; Smetana 1999;). • When children harm others, these goals come in conflict with one another. • How can parents address the wrong doing and simultaneously help their child develop and maintain a positive sense of self? • We propose that, because of the challenge moral transgressions pose to parental goals, there will be differences in how mothers evaluate and explain their child's harmful versus helpful behavior. This study aims to examine those differences. • 101 children from three age groups (7, 11, and 16 years old), each containing roughly equal numbers of boys and girls, were asked to nominate two events: • Once when they hurt a friend • Once when they helped a friend • Mothers were then asked to evaluate the child's actions. •"Do you think what (child) did was ok or not ok? Why?" • Mother's responses were transcribed verbatim for analysis. Responses were coded for: •Explanations mothers give for the child's behavior •Each explanation was further coded for • Event specificity vs. generalizability • Event-specific explanations: suggest that behavior was limited to the specific instance in question • Generalizable explanations: speak more to the child's traits, characteristics, etc. They apply to situations beyond the instance being discussed • Valence: Postive vs. Negative • Explains why the act was ok or why it was not ok • These findings suggest that mothers see their children with "unconditional positive regard" (Coplan et. al., 2002). • Mothers are more likely to provide explanations for their child's harmful behavior than they are for helpful behavior. This suggests they feel compelled to reconcile their desire to feel they are teaching positive moral values with the reality that their child did not act in accordance with those values. • Mothers are more likely to provide event-specific explanations for harm, allowing them to discount the child's character or stable traits as the cause. • Mother's evaluations of both harm and help events are overwhelmingly positive, perhaps stemming from the goal of promoting a positive view of the 0 child. 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 Proportion of Mothers Who Gave Explanations Harm Help 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 Positive Evaluations Negative Evaluation Proportion of Explanations Valence Harm Help 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 Event Specific General Event Specific vs. General Harm Help Examples: Event-Specific General Positive He was just joking around. She's only 6. Negative She should have been paying more attention. He has a short temper. • Data were analyzed using a series of age (7, 11, 16-year-olds) x event (harm help) mixed model ANOVAs. • Patterns of results were similar across age groups, but analysis revealed several effects of event type. Parents have multiple socialization goals, including promoting children's positive self-views, and instilling positive moral values. When children exhibit prosocial behavior, parents can respond in ways that simul-taneously promote both goals. However, when children's behavior hurts others, it presents a unique chal-lenge: how can parents address the wrongdoing while also supporting their children's positive self-views? Our study examined how mothers' interpretations of their child's behavior might inform these issues. Spe-cifically, we examined 101 mothers' judgments of their child's harmful and helpful behavior across a wide age range (6, 11, and 16 year-old children). Children nominated two events in which they harmed and helped a friend, respectively; their mothers then evaluated each action. Mother's responses were coded for their tendency to provide explanations for children's behavior. Subsequently, these explanations were coded for whether they (a) justified whether the action was ok or not ok, and (b) were event-specific (i.e., she was tired) or generalizable (i.e., he is helpful). Results revealed that mothers offered more explana-tions for the child's harmful than helpful behavior. Explanations for harm were also more event-specific than those for help. Not surprisingly, for help events, mothers' explanations were overwhelmingly used to justify the positivity of the action. However, 77% of explanations for children's harmful behavior were also used to justify why the child's behavior was okay. Results imply that, because children's prosociality does not pose a challenge to parental goals as harmful actions, parents may not feel as compelled to explain children's helpful acts. Results also suggest that most parents view their children with unconditional posi-tive regard. Consistent with this, by giving event-specific explanations for harm, parents avoid concluding that their child's negative disposition or character is the cause of their misbehavior. These findings provide novel information about parental moral socialization surrounding children's everyday experi-ences of harm and help. |